Monday, December 01, 2008

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 1

Merry Christmas Chums! Throughout December I will, on occasion, be posting various Christmas covers here for your perusal. The choices will be randomly selected from various years and not consecutive so I hope there will be a few surprises along the way, along with a few memories stirred. I won't be going into detail about the contents. The idea is just to present the covers for visual entertainment, with basic info on who drew them, where known.

First up, at the top of this post, is the Buster cover from Christmas 1969. Artwork by Spanish artist Nadal. A simple design but quite striking, and changing the usual logo colour (red on yellow) to yellow on blue really made the issue stand out in the shops.

Next, (above) the cover for Lion and Thunder dated 25th December 1971. Artwork by the superb Geoff Campion illustrating a traditional "slap up feed". Such scenes were common on humour comics, but not so much on adventure comics so this was quite unusual for the times. It features many of the comic's stars, brought together for the first (and only) time, even including cartoon cat Mowser and James the Butler!

The Eagle cover for 1958 has little to do with Christmas in its cover strip but the masthead is nicely decorated and it's a good excuse to show some Frank Hampson artwork. (Or would this be by Keith Watson and Desmond Walduck by this time? Let me know Eagle experts!)

The Joker from Christmas 1934 is a classic pre-war cover, full of fun and slapstick. A real "feelgood" style. The artwork is by John Jukes I think, which once again shows a big feed at the end.

Tiger and Hurricane, from 1968, has a busy logo adorned with presents, and Typhoon Tracy, strongman of the comic, dressed as Father Christmas. The Skid Solo cover strip, suitably snowy, is by John Vernon.

Also from 1968, the Christmas Beano features a nice Biffo the Bear strip by Dudley Watkins from a typically inventive script from the DC Thomson fun factory. (Update: Comment from "Jason. A. Quest" over on Heidi MacDonalds The Beat blog: "No children’s comic is complete without at least one strip in which the character dresses up as a giant erect penis. ")The Christmas 2002 issue of The Dandy is a wonderfully festive cover by Keith Robson featuring all the Dandy stars of the period.

Finally in this selection, a fantastic TV Express cover by Mike Western from December 1961. The composition and colour of this cover is just perfect, showing what a great artist he was. Mike passed away in May of this year and the comics industry is poorer for his loss.

More Christmas Comic Covers soon! If you have any childhood memories of certain Christmas editions let me know and I'll see if I have a copy to show here.

Hey, folks! Comics!

About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is a blog that looks back at classic British comics and sometimes reports on current and upcoming titles. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are ones I've scanned from my own personal collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. I do not support 'piracy' and unlike some I do not use images from dodgy illegal comic scan DVDs, nor do I hotlink images from other sites.

On the rare occasion when I might use an image from elsewhere I always credit the source, and I would hope that if anyone takes images from my blog for use on their own sites they will show me the same courtesy. It's simply good manners.

Viewing images: Click on each image to see it displayed much larger. (Some may require clicking again to see them full size.)

About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'Felix and His Amazing Underpants', 'Pathetic Sharks' and 'Suicidal Syd' for adult comic VIZ. 'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.